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The Protagonists
"You did enough to prove to the rest of us that you’re notable. Most of us want to kill you, do worse than kill you. Because you pose a threat, because you’re an X factor.”
Jordan Dooling
"You'll get the hang of it eventually."
Of what?
"Yourself."
He's the wearer of iconic clothes, wielder of iconic weapons, and chronicler of iconic logs. He fears many things, but he'll cross those bridges when he comes to them.- Captain Obvious: One example: "..if you see a bear, run, okay? You probably didn’t need me to tell you that, actually."
- Catchphrase: "Tiger Stripes, give me strength..."
- Character Development: The entire story revolves around his development into a better person. By the time the story begins, Jordan's naive, terrible around girls, and hesitant to believe in any such thing as "Rapture." By Act III, he wants all these women to stop chasing him for long enough so that he can save the world. Then by Act IV, he's sick of himself, knows he's let everyone down, just wants the Fears to kill him already, but as long as he's still alive he intends on making things right.
- Cosmic Plaything: "Paul’s response? “DAMN! Dude, everything bad happens to you.” I.. concur."
- Dual Wielding: Swords Hammett and Hackett.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: He gains the title of "terrorist." Who works for the bad guys. Though this bad publicity eventually transforms into very very good publicity by the time Act IV rolls around.
- Little Hero, Big War: There seems to be a whole rebellion movement against the monsters of the apocalypse, and one can only imagine all the carnage going on with all their conflicts. But does Jordan get to see it? No way.
- One-Liner: Actually manages to give one, albeit an extremely strange and kinky one, during the climax of the "White Jester" arc.
- "I guess his call's... *sunglasses* just been dropped."
- Scarf of Asskicking: He wears a purple scarf, though he trades it for a blue one when he decides to make the most of the apocalypse at the end of Act III.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Well, until about halfway through the first act.
Donnivan Rand
"I keep expecting to see the slender man in every one of these alleyways. I can never get used to being paranoid, can I? The dark alleyways and the streets filled with broken cars will always exist within me somewhere, won’t they? I don’t want to be like this for the rest of my life. I don’t care which fate I have, I just want peace of mind again."
Donnie's a British girl Jordan meets out of happenstance. They stick together for a good portion of the apocalypse, suffering through a lot together and growing together and apart gradually. Donnie falls in love with Bones, and it really looks like the two will go well together until the Indisen slender man has Jordan kill Donnie.- Character Development: By the start of the story, Donnie is friendly to Jordan but a bit quiet otherwise. By Act III, she hates him and otherwise tries to be an all-around stronger individual.
- Climax Boss: Anna was this to her at the very climax of Act II. See also: Curbstomp Battle.
Daniel Finnegan
Danny’s really set on this. His girl was.. taken. Viciously. And he really wants to get back at the bastard who took her away from him. ...He says he’ll look for me in his travels, and that he’s sure “we’ll meet again on the battlefield.”
Danny is, for lack of a better word, a loner. He attempts to stay away from largely populated areas, but it never works out. Due to the murder of a loved one, he has set his sights on revenge. Little Danny Boy was first met July 4th in New Jersey, shooting off fireworks at the alleged murderer. He comes in and out of the logs a lot, always respectful of Jordan but possibly hiding some resentment. He dies fighting off The Ecclesiarchway on the final day.Rauri "Fentzy" McGanna
“How patient do you want me to be? I’ve been waiting for months to find her, I’ve been trying my best, but it hasn’t even been my best or we’d have found her.”
“None of us said you had to be patient.”
“I CAN’T! I can’t. There’s too much going on. I..”
Fentzy's a girl Jordan has a crush on. She acts as the catalyst for a lot of Jordan's romantic development, even if she herself has better things to worry about. Like saving her sister from the Fears that took her.- Determinator: Exaggerated since the disappearance of her family.
- First-Person Smartass: When she gets to write her own logs, she is very snarky.
- Tsundere: Fentzy suggests Jordan flirts only with her, and then backs herself up with “Don’t get any ideas, bitch. I’m trying to make you look better.”
Annabelle Rhodes
You always found the funny side to the chaotic eldritch, and I think I’m starting to get it.
Anna has been dubbed "Forsaken." No Fears are allowed to kill her, but they had their fun all the same. Anna is Jordan's ex-girlfriend, who he gets to see for the very first time during his first trip across America. He tries to help protect her from the apocalypse. Death catches up with her, though whether she's directly killed by a Fear or if she symbolically kills herself is up to the reader to decide. During the last act, Anna's body becomes the symbol of Jordan's guilt.- Climax Boss: At the very climax of Act II, Anna took on Donnie one-on-one. ....it quickly became a Curbstomp Battle in Anna's favor.
The Fears
“We are the reason creatures developed the phenomenon known as ‘fear’ in the first place. To those who know of us, we are the night stars casting our terror from light years away. To those who directly encounter us, we are the monster you created in your daddy’s name.”
"Your human mind could never possibly comprehend the true complex nature of our relations, but unfortunately, the only human concept that comes close to matching it is a childish treehouse."
The Beast
There is no happy ending.
There can be no Earth.
Jordan didn't even want to believe this thing existed, but it turns out its existence is unfathomably more terrifying than anyone could have expected. The Slender Man was trapped in the deepest level of the rabbit hole for the duration of the apocalypse, and after Xanadu tortured it relentlessly, it became The Beast, the embodiment of all that is terror and eldritch.- And I Must Scream: The Beast was tortured. It needed to scream, but it had no face. So it grew one.
- The Faceless: The Beast is frequently mentioned in the story, but never thoroughly described. The only characters that have even seen it are either insane, dead, or not willing to talk about it. The insane one simply said it looks "nothing like the slender man." Even when the narrator sees The Beast and has a conversation with it, he talks about what The Beast used to be without mentioning what it currently is.
- Mind Screw: Other than being its conventional actions, good luck understanding what's going on when Jordan meets The Beast on August 18th.
"The Rake" / The Anathema
‘Four come, four served, and kingdoms in between shall be take. Five weeks and two days after the four shadows, mankind shall face the true name of The Rake.’”
Not much is known about this one, though a lot of brutality is expected. Jordan killed all four of them in Act I. Though it turns out he had no idea what the real Rake was like. The Anathema is a living and breathing glitch, the distorted corpse of a scientist who discovered too much, breaking all the known rules and laws of our physics and acting against all nature.- Foreshadowing: Four egg sacs were found in Jordan's house, and one of them had already been opened. Simultaneously, one Rake had been killed.
- The Anathema spends its time either taking apart cars and rebuilding them for something, or catering to an oddity that can only be referred to as its "hive." It's all building up to something.
The Ecclesiarchway
A man in a gas mask and skin-tight suit who controls all the zombies. He doesn't seem to want to fight anyone directly, but.. a lot is unknown about him. Death himself. He only seems passive from time to time because he has to manage the lives and deaths of as much as possible, and during an apocalypse of all times. Though he does horrible things, and he has a lot of 'rule the world' hidden agendas.The Harlequin
Mistress is sitting atop the tallest booth in the marketplace— a makeshift throne for a makeshift God.
A girl in a wooden costume, looks like a bloodthirsty marionette. Controls people, victims are called "Puppets." Her real name is Rosa Syclus, and she represents the cycle of abuse and everything associated with it. She was originally a victim of The Beast before the apocalypse, and when he breaks out of his prison, she's the first person he hunts.- Advancing Boss of Doom: When Jordan tried to challenge her, it started off as a "playful game of hide and seek" and quickly became a deadly game of cat and mouse, except the cat was on fire.
- Victory Fakeout: Jordan thought he defeated her by shoving her into an unnaturally hot oven. Just as he was about to leave, he hears the oven being opened from the inside.
The Musicians
"He’s one of The Musicians, inventors of sound and the great misdirect known as language. They don’t talk to commoners like you much. Then again, they’re usually too busy crafting worlds of music and rivers of cacophony."
Two men dressed up as The Blues Brothers. They always look blurry, and they're always in the distance. They create sound, create life out of sound, and obfuscate everything in your perception. The modern manifestation of Ptah, Phanes, and Seppo Ilmarinen, The Musicians are world-creating gods who still aren't sure whether they want to directly interfere with affairs.- Mind Screw: Their goddamn modus operandi.
- Sheathe Your Sword: When Jordan takes them on directly in "The Battle of Dominiere," this is how he winds up doing it.
The Ruin
A little boy who's always a little too cold. He sings nursery rhymes to keep himself warm. Not much is known about him. And not much is revealed.The Beacon
A tall figure in a medieval plague doctor costume. Not much is known about him, but he seems to evoke eldritch illnesses. Has followers.- Nightmare Face: Its mask was taken off in Sanctuary Francisco, revealing a very.. disturbing sight.
The Judge
"YOUR JUDGEMENT HAS COME."
No one is sure what he looks like, but the ones who have seen him have not lived to tell the tale. He judges entire cultures and punishes only single individuals for it.The Morphs
Black birds. Just fully black birds. No beaks. Instead there is a gaping hole where a beak should be. Definitely not crows. Not anymore at least. I’m seeing black hands on the car, are these even birds anymore. ...Maybe I should be freaking out more, but I’m just..in awe at these things. They’re like..indescribable. I don’t know if that’s good or what.
A convocation of birds. They fly around, either becoming lightning, carrying people and cars off to who-knows-where, or they fly so fast that they morph cities and landscapes into their own realms of terror.Not much is known about this virus, but hosts seem to have their faces contorted into a living, breathing Guy Fawkes mask. Can spread by mere touch. "Brothers" with The Devil, a late-stage character who helps the Fears pull together.
The Victims
Shadows on the wall. They don't seem hostile. Most is unknown. They are fragments of Rapture itself, a part of the holy trinity that is the granddaddy of eldritch abominations.Tiresias looks like an old blind man and is always seen around books. Not much is known about him, though with the apocalypse, he's been trapped in his eldritch library and seems to want to help people. He's Bones from the future. And he's killed by The Ecclesiarchway.
Salmacis
So what are you, the one running all the experiments in the background, the one behind all this?
“You mean, am I your God?”
Yes.
“You can call me whatever you want, Jordan. I’m just a girl who got lucky too. All I know is all I do; I’m a parasite, much like you.”
Salmacis is some sort of water virus— as far as we know— that 'eats' all of a body of water and replaces it with itself. Note: Humans are mostly water. Human 'members' of the Hive Mind are referred to as "The Camper." Salmacis seems helpful towards the protagonists, and forms a romantic attatchment to Jordan. Salmacis turns out to be— or perhaps becomes— the substance of life, itself. And even when she dies in Act IV, she's not really all that dead.- Combat Tentacles: Salmacis seems to have some, hinting at being more than just water.
Xanadu
“Of course, Xanadu’s not just a city, not just a world, not just a dimension; Xanadu lives. Xanadu flows. And if you ever left, it’d be because Xanadu wanted you to. It’d be at a means Xanadu provided for you. So if someone left, they’d... well. They were said to have come out not human anymore. Shadows of their former selves, really.”
Paradise beyond the Door, the land down the rabbit hole. Xanadu is an impossible universe of every remote wonder and terrifying Hell one could ever imagine. The only way to get there is to go through a Door. If you go far enough 'down a rabbit hole,' you'll find Xanadu actually starts to make sense. Xanadu is Rapture itself, one element of the holy trinity that is the granddaddy of eldritch abominations.- Genius Loci: Xanadu is said to have a mind of its own.
- It's All About Me: The backstory rant of the ruler of Xanadu is outright disturbing (Though it uses Harlequin's mind as an interpreter, so take this with a grain of salt): They used to be the One True God, mindlessly adored by countless mortals who did absolutely everything They said. Then other gods came into being, and tried to take miniscule portions of followers to do their own thing. They responded with total war, followed by turning the gods into tortured Fears. When some of Their formerly loyal slaves revolted at the sheer horror of this, They murdered everyone in the universe - which kind of screwed Them over until the Apocalypse gave them a second chance at reclaiming universal domination.
- Mind Screw: Everything.
The Rapture Creatures
“Your planet will find itself segmented, with demented skies and an awful lot of Dogscape.”
Indisen
"We’re children of the rabbit holes, and of.. well, I’m not at liberty to say. But of course, you don’t understand what I mean, do you? You haven’t enough knowledge.”
As Salmacis calls it, "Individualistic Sentience." Seems to be Camper who have suddenly gotten a will of their own. They're the remains of ancient Xanadian culture and society, forced into a sort of parasitic slavery by Rapture itself while also becoming one of the holy trinity of the granddaddy of eldritch abominations.Shadowclones
They look like The Victims, except they never move unless you do. When you do, they multiply in numbers. Basically just a Victim after it's been forced back into a Door, though this is never actually said in the narrative.The Sadface Man
A man in a theatrical sad mask, only spotted in Xanadu. Very hostile. He's a man named Omega who wants to help Jordan prepare for preventing Rapture.The Rachaels
A world of naked submissive women, all the exact same. They love Jordan, though they hate all other girls. They seem to be hiding many things.The Seven Ciphers
Seven gargantuan creatures in progressively deeper and deeper realms of Xanadu. Defeating each gives the protagonists a riddle to solve, solving each riddle does something crazier and crazier to the world above.- Attack Its Weak Point: All the Cipher battles involve this explicitly somewhere.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Grand Gtheru is, at first, just another little eyestalk alone on a stage. But then it rises up and becomes a disturbing sight.
- Barrier Change Boss: The Grand Gtheru is this.
- Boss Battle: They are loving homages to everything about boss battles, as well as being epic fights, themselves.
- Braggart Boss: The Realm King is definitely this, cavaliers!
- Damage-Sponge Boss: All the Cipher battles involve some kind of this.
- Marathon Boss: In homage to the Temple Guardians of Metroid Prime 2, all the Cipher battles take at least one hour to defeat.
The Seven Knights of Xanadu
"“Well, Cockroach Jesus appeared to me on the first day and informed me I was to be a Knight of Xanadu. He let me know that this is a very noble profession, that I was to be one of the only seven Knights on Earth. Our fight was with the prophesied ones... and we were to take them on ‘wielding instruments of plastic and colors of five.’”
Seven chosen warriors, trained to be masters of navigating Xanadu's impossible labyrinths, destined to fight the protagonists— in Guitar Hero.- Epic Rocking: In every single sense of the trope.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The fate of our world may be decided with plastic guitars!
